Most Wanted Dad

The door opened, revealing a plump woman with short brown hair who obviously did nothing to enhance her appearance. Her hair was uncombed, her clothing unkempt, none of which detracted from her pretty face. In fact, her eyes were quite stunning, and then he realized he was staring down into them.

“Oh. Ah, I, um, hope we haven’t caught you at a bad time.”

She pushed a hand through her hair. Her eyelashes were golden, he noticed, and her eyes a very bright, very clear blue. She hid a yawn behind her hand. “Don’t you sleep, Officer…?”

He tamped down a spurt of irritation. “Kincaid. Evans Kincaid.”

“Ah, yes. Kincaid. And this, I suppose, is your daughter?” She gave Mattie a swift once-over, her own delicate features arranged in a frown of obvious disapproval. “You’re letting the air-conditioning out,” she said, turning away. “You might as well come in—now that I’m up.”

Mattie shot him a smug look, which he glowered over before pushing her inside and pulling the door closed behind him. The odor of stale cigarette smoke immediately assailed him. He cleared his throat, forestalling a cough, and saw that he was standing in the living room. Mattie had her hand over her mouth and nose but dropped it when he signaled her to do so. Mrs. Slater pulled a blanket and a pillow off the couch, making room for them to sit, which they did, side by side. Mrs. Slater pulled the belt of her robe a little tighter and slid over the arm and into the seat of a recliner positioned directly in front of the TV.

“I’d offer you some coffee, but I don’t have any made yet,” she said, sounding anything but apologetic.

“That’s all right,” Evans quickly assured her. “We’re about to hit the hay ourselves, so coffee’s the last thing we need right now.”

“Oh, right,” she said, “the late shift.”

For a long, awkward moment, silence reigned, then Evans nudged Mattie as surreptitiously as possible with his elbow. She swallowed, revealing her nervousness, and sighed. “I’m real sorry about waking you up last night,” she said in an endearingly small voice.

Amy Slater flashed a decidedly joyless smile. “Well, to be honest with you, the music didn’t wake me. The problem was that I couldn’t hear my television…and I had a terrific tension headache.” She grimaced and blurted, “I’m trying to quit smoking.”

Evans felt an absurd sense of relief. “Well, that explains it,” he said brightly. She immediately took umbrage, her spine suddenly ramrod straight, her nails digging into the arms of her chair. They were attractively long, he noticed, and painted pale pink. They gave her hands a graceful, feminine look. He wondered if she painted her toenails, too, but before he could look to see if her feet were bare, she was taking him to task with her tongue again.

“If you’re implying that the music wasn’t too loud, I have to object. My windows were rattling over here!”

“Oh, come now, it wasn’t quite that—”

“It was every bit that bad!” she insisted, sliding to the edge of her chair. “It’s a wonder that child can still hear!”

Evans strangled a sharp retort, wanting to tell her not to speak of his child as that child. Instead, he heard Mattie telling her quite calmly that she was no child, period.

“And I don’t have to stay here and be insulted!” she concluded, getting smoothly to her feet.

Mrs. Slater followed her up. “I didn’t insult you! I merely said—”

“Sit down!” Evans barked, surprised when Amy Slater promptly popped back down into her chair. Mattie, at whom his order had been aimed, first folded her arms then gave him a belligerent glare before complying. Evans gulped down further orders and leaned forward, elbows on knees, as he reached for a reasonable tone.

“The music was too loud,” he said flatly. “Whether it was as loud as you imply or not, it was too loud. We apologize. Let that be the end of it.”

“Fine,” Amy snipped, lifting her nose and turning her face away.

Evans set his back teeth. “What else would you have us do, Mrs. Slater? There were no physical damages that I can repair, no monetary losses to be incurred. We have apologized. Now, can’t we get along as neighbors should?”

Amy waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not the one who tried to blow the neighbor’s house off its foundation.”

Evans closed his eyes and began to count, then abruptly gave up and took to his feet. “Fine! Let’s go, Mattie. We’re obviously wasting our time here.”

Mattie jumped up and followed him to the door. He went out of it and didn’t look back, Mattie at his heels. He’d really wanted to get along. He had tried to get along. Well, so much for good intentions! It was just his luck to move in next door to a hardheaded woman in the throes of a nicotine fit. When he heard the slam that indicated Amy Slater had the gall to be angry at him, he clenched his fists and kept walking. He didn’t dare comment to Mattie, because if he did, he’d soon be shouting, and that would solve nothing. What he did instead was to fix his mind on the day ahead.

He was going to take a cold shower and crawl into bed for a few hours. That would cool off his temper as well as his body. After a very late “lunch,” he’d take a look at that squeaky hinge on the garage door and tinker with the idle on his pickup. Then he’d watch a little TV, stretch and go for a run as soon as the sun set. After that, it would be time to get ready for work. All in all, a relaxing, enjoyable day. He wondered what Mrs. Slater would be doing with her time. Nothing useful, if the condition of her home was any indication. It was none of his business, at any rate. The best he could do from now on was to keep his distance. Stubborn woman! If she’d played her cards right, she could’ve had her house fixed up in the name of neighborly cooperation, but no, she had to be a shrew. Well, it was no skin off his nose. He had plenty to keep him busy as it was. Her house could fall right down around her for all he cared.

But it was a shame that they couldn’t at least be amicable neighbors.

It was a real shame.

Chapter Two

Amy was toweling her hair dry when she heard the first knock. Who on earth? she wondered. Her sister and brother-in-law, Joan and Griff Shaw, were out of town for several days so Griff could ride in the rodeo, and they always took Danna with them during the summer. Amy’s parents hadn’t said anything about coming down from Oklahoma City; they rarely left home anymore. Her best—and if she were honest, only—friend, Ruthie, should have been at work. She was of half a mind to ignore it. After all, who else could it be except some solicitor or…No, he wouldn’t, not after the way she’d treated him and his daughter this morning. She sighed, pondering again her reaction to her new neighbor. What was it about him that made her want to jump up and run in the opposite direction? It had to be simply a matter of bad timing. He’d come along just when she was trying to quit smoking. Yes, that was undoubtedly it.

Her caller proved persistent, so much so that she finally stuck her head out of the bathroom door and shouted, “Just a minute!” Grumbling, she pulled on denim shorts and a worn, white T-shirt, tugged a comb through her hair, and went barefoot to the door. She couldn’t believe it when she opened up and found that it was, indeed, him standing there. He wore running shorts, a skimpy sleeveless “muscle” shirt and athletic shoes without socks. The man was obviously in fine physical shape. His lower arms and legs, she noticed, were dusted with fine black hairs, and so, too, she suspected, was his upper chest. For some reason that seemed strangely…erotic. Mark, she recalled, had been inordinately proud of his full head of sandy brown hair, but he’d hardly sported a hair on any other part of his body. Now why would she compare the two of them?

“I was hoping that we could start over,” Evans Kincaid was saying.

Amy shook her head to clear it, a movement that Kincaid interpreted as a refusal of his truce. He rolled his eyes, threw up his hands and started to turn away. Impulsively Amy reached out to stop him. This morning’s fiasco could be laid squarely at her feet, after all. “Don’t go,” she said, her hand clamped down over his forearm.

Surprised, he looked at her hand, then lifted his head to beam upon her a smile so bright that it was blinding. “Well, all right.”

She snatched her hand away, suddenly feeling ridiculously shy and disheveled. Her hand crept up to her drying hair. “Um, maybe you’d better come in.”

He stepped inside and closed the door. “Now what?” she wondered, unaware that she’d spoken aloud until he chuckled.

“Ah, how about a cool glass of water?”

“Oh. Right.” Now she was laughing. “Come on back to the kitchen.” She signaled for him to follow and turned away to pad across the living room, past the dining suite, and into the hall. She pulled the door to her bedroom closed, not wishing him to witness its clutter, then turned left into the kitchen. “Actually, I have some iced tea if you’d prefer that.”

“Tea would be great.”

She opened a cabinet door, realized there were no clean glasses there and went to the dishwasher, hoping she’d remembered to run it. Thankfully she had, though she couldn’t remember exactly when that might have been. Taking the tea pitcher from the refrigerator, she dropped a few ice cubes into the glass and poured it full. “It’s already sweetened. Would you like some lemon?”

He shook his head, then sipped the tea and promptly nodded. “Guess I’d better have lemon, after all.”

“Too sweet?” Her mother had always told her that she made syrup, not tea.

He nodded apologetically. “A little.” Obviously it was a lot too sweet.

She rummaged in the refrigerator for a lemon, eventually finding a few dried up slices in a tiny bowl. Biting her lip, she closed the refrigerator and suggested that he might prefer water, after all.

“Oh, this is fine,” he said unconvincingly, whereupon she snatched the glass out of his hand and dumped its contents into the sink. Quickly she rinsed the glass, filled it partway with water and carried it to the freezer for a couple of ice cubes.

“Thank you,” he said when she handed him the glass of water. “May I take a seat?”

“Of course.”

He pulled out a chair at her dinky kitchen table and sat down. “Won’t you join me?”

She pulled out another chair and sat.

He ran a fingertip around the lip of his glass. “I, um, thought perhaps that if we got to know each other a little better we could, ah, get along.”

Amy passed a hand over her eyes. “I get along just fine with all my other neighbors.”

“Are any of them teenagers with only one parent and that one of the opposite sex?”

Amy grimaced. “No. Actually there isn’t another soul on this whole block under fifty.”

He grinned. “I know. It was the deciding factor in the purchase of my house.”

She gave him an openly curious look. “Want to explain that?”

He nodded. “Actually, I do.” He sipped from his glass and set it down again. “I hoped this neighborhood would have a…calming effect on my daughter. You see, Mattie was just twelve when her mother died.”

“Tough age,” Amy muttered.

“Very. She was an early bloomer, deep in the throes of puberty. We were very close, Mattie and I, from the day of her birth. I couldn’t wait to have a child. Neither could Andie. In fact, we were married in October and Mattie was born just a year later.”

“I take it there were no others,” Amy commented lightly.

He sighed. “Nope. We always intended to have another, but Mattie was just everything we could have possibly asked for, and we didn’t want her to share her early childhood with a sibling. We always had it in the back of our minds to have another when she started school, but then Andie started thinking about going to college—I think I told you that she was only eighteen when we married. Anyway, I thought she ought to have the chance to go, so when Mattie started school, so did Andie, and, well, she loved it, so much so that after she finally got her bachelor’s degree, she started in on her master’s. She always said we’d have that second baby before she hit forty. But she hardly got past thirty.” He stared at his glass, watching the condensation bead on the outside. “She was crossing the street to her car after class and some hopped-up frat pledge jumped the median and mowed her down.”

“I’m so sorry,” Amy said gently.

He nodded, keeping his gaze on his glass. “I couldn’t believe it. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but Mattie…She and her mother were practically inseparable just then. She was suddenly becoming a young lady, and Andie was so good with her. To tell you the truth, I was feeling kind of left out. They were always giggling together and trying on makeup and God knows what all. And suddenly Andie’s gone.” He shook his head and sat up straighter in his chair, finally lifting his gaze. “Mattie’s a good girl, Mrs. Slater, but she’s been through a lot. Losing her mother sort of knocked her off kilter, and she doesn’t seem to have ever really gotten back in balance. She’s going through this stage right now, rebellion, I guess, and there was this boy back in California…” He told Amy about the rocker, which explained Mattie’s rather bizarre style of fashion. “Actually, the whole scene was pretty rough out there, gangs and all. When I conceived this notion of moving her out of that climate, I went to my pastor,” Evans said, “and he agreed that it might be best. Turns out that he’s from Oklahoma, and he has a brother on the force here in Duncan, and the brother had mentioned that one of the captains here was leaving. Well, it seemed heavensent. So here we are.”

“I take it the move was rather sudden,” Amy surmised.

“Yeah, too sudden maybe.”

“School will start soon,” she told him. “Mattie will make friends.”

“I know, I know. And I’ll eventually get off this horrible shift, so we can have a real home life again. The new man always starts at the bottom of the totem pole, you know. The original captain on this shift got promoted when the guy I actually replaced left.”

“So you got the ugly shift.”

“Right. But it’s not too bad, really. Things are real calm in Duncan compared to the suburbs of L.A.”

“I can just imagine.”

He grinned. “Yeah? Have you ever lived in a big city?”

“Actually, I have. I grew up in Oklahoma City, and Mark and I lived in Houston for a while.”

“Mark?” He made the question in his voice sound utterly innocent, but those leaf green eyes were anything but. She got a taste of what a criminal suspect must get when being interrogated by Officer Kincaid. Oddly, she didn’t find the experience unpalatable.

“My husband,” she said, then heard herself adding, “my late husband.”

“Oh,” he said, shifting forward in his seat. “Then you’re widowed, too.”

“Yes,” she admitted, her tone closing the door on further inquiry. One dark brow quirked upward at that, but he was a man who could take a hint, apparently, for he said not another word, which was good. Or so Amy told herself. Her relationship with Mark was much too precious to be trotted out for examination with everyone who walked through her door. So why did she feel this niggling sense of disappointment?

Maybe she just needed to talk about Mark, but if so, she’d do her talking to Ruthie. Ruthie had appreciated Mark; she’d been half in love with him herself by the time he became ill. If no one else close to her seemed to have understood him, well, that was their loss. At any rate, she didn’t intend to discuss the matter with another man, not this one, anyway. That being the case, she decided to get the conversation back on the proper track. “What happened this morning was my fault,” she said flatly. “It’s the smoking—or rather, the not smoking.”

“I’m sure it’s very difficult,” he said consolingly.

“It certainly is.”

“But it’s a good thing,” he added quickly. “Giving up cigarettes is a very positive move.”

“I hope so,” she muttered doubtfully.

“What made you decide to quit?”

She grimaced. “I don’t know. Well, actually, yes, I do. I have a little niece named Danna, and her parents put her up to bugging me about it. At least, I think they did. They’re big health nuts these days, which is pure irony considering who her father, uh, stepfather is. His name’s Griff Shaw, the bull rider. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”

“Griff Shaw! No kidding? Heck, yeah, I’ve heard of him. Fancy that, Griff Shaw’s your brother-in-law. I’ll have to remember to tell Mattie that. But, uh, what’s this irony business about?”

“Well, before Griff married my little sister, Joan, he was a first-class lush.”

“Really? He’s an alcoholic then?”

Amy wrinkled her nose. “No, nothing like that. He was just wild, you know, partying all the time.”

“Ah, the celebrity life-style.”

“Something like that.”

Evans Kincaid cocked his head to one side. “It’s always struck me odd how these pro athletes sabotage themselves sometimes. I mean, you’d think they’d do everything in their power to protect their primary assets, which logically would be their bodies.”

“I suppose,” Amy said pensively. “I never really thought about it.”

“Hmm, on the other hand, though,” Evans went on, “our bodies are of prime importance to all of us, not just the pros. That’s why I never could understand why people would subject themselves to the abuse of drugs and such. I mean, if you want a good high, why not exercise? It feels great, and it’s healthy.” He shook a finger at her, his eyes alight with the glow of inspiration. “Come to think of it, a regular exercise plan might be just what you need to help you get over the craving to smoke, and it’ll help with the weight gain, too.”

Amy’s mouth fell open. He’d as much as told her she was fat, as if she didn’t already know. “You rat! What makes you think I care what you think of me?”

He blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Are you this insensitive with your suspects? I suppose a little exercise would take away the urge to steal or lie or cheat or…or…whatever!”

He was gaping. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I’m talking about that cheap crack about my weight!”

“What crack? All I meant was that a lot of people worry about putting on weight when they quit smoking.”

“I heard what you said! Oh, just get out of my house!” She jumped to her feet and slammed her chair up under the table.

Evans was still gaping, but he got up and gave his chair the same treatment she had given hers. “Of all the touchy, loony dames! Lady, you take the proverbial cake!”

Amy pointed toward the living room, arm rigid, face livid. “I suggest you take your leave through the proverbial door, boor, and don’t bother coming back with one of your lame apologies!”

“Oh, don’t worry!” he told her, wild-eyed. “I won’t be apologizing this time! Any apologies due this time are yours!”

“Ha! I’ve done all the apologizing I intend to do, period. Now get out!”

“My pleasure,” he said, sneering, “and from now on, if you want to talk to me, call the police!”

“Out!” she screamed, but she was talking to an empty space, a fact to which a slamming door attested.

He wasn’t gone three seconds when she covered her face with her hands and began to cry. The moment she realized what she was doing, she sniffed up the tears and determinedly bottled them inside of her. She wouldn’t cry over a snide remark by a cad like Evans Kincaid. Heavens, she couldn’t even remember the last time a man had made her cry.

“For Pete’s sake, Amy, what are you trying to do, kill me? Do you want me to die?”

“You know I don’t!”

“Then be a little more careful. I’m only your husband, after all.”

She shook away the memory. That didn’t count. Mark hadn’t known what he was saying. It was the illness talking, the pain. Evans Kincaid was just being hateful when he’d said she was fat. Mark would never have said anything so personal.

“You aren’t going out like that, are you? What if someone I know sees you?”

Well, of course, Mark commented from time to time. It was his right as a husband, after all, and any comments Mark had made about her appearance he had made for her own good, out of love. Evans Kincaid was just being mean when he’d said what he’d said, no matter how innocent it might have sounded to a third party. Anyway, even if he hadn’t actually said that she was fat, he’d certainly implied it. Just because he was built like the Rock of Gibraltar he thought he could make snide remarks about everyone else. So what if she’d put on a few pounds? It was her business. She folded her arms and huffed, trying to hold on to her outrage, but reason was slowly returning, and with it came the knowledge that she had again made a fool of herself. She closed her eyes, seeing herself as Evans must see her, a plain, pudgy, high-strung, pathetic excuse for a woman.

She wanted to run next door and beg his pardon, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. What difference did it make, anyway? He was never going to give her another chance, and why should she care? He wasn’t anything to her, nothing at all, and that’s the way it should be. But for some reason she wanted to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head. Why not? What else did she have to do?

It was going on midnight when she realized that the music she was hearing was not part of the television program she was watching. A quick muting of the volume on the set told her unequivocally that the sound was coming from the Kincaids’. It wasn’t as loud as before, but it was definitely too loud. Amy chewed her lip, wondering what her best course of action might be. Should she let it go and hope it didn’t happen again, or ought she try to nip this thing in the bud before it went any further? She hated to go through another scene with Evans Kincaid, but maybe if she moderated her replies this time, if she didn’t let him get to her, they could have a reasonable conversation—and maybe she could even find the words to apologize again.

She went to the phone, but this time she looked up the non-emergency number and left a personal message for Captain Kincaid, saying that his next-door neighbor was calling to suggest that he swing by his house to take care of a certain situation there. She hardly had time to go over in her mind what she would say to him, when he pulled up in the police cruiser. He slammed his door with his usual gusto and stalked into the house. The music shut off, and a few moments later she heard him and Mattie shouting at one another. After some minutes another door slammed, and Amy thought for certain that he would be on her porch at any moment, but he didn’t come.

Amy went to the dining room window and stared out at the house next door. The police cruiser was still parked in the drive, but the house was now dark and silent. A movement of shadow against the yellow light of the Kincaids’ front porch told her that Evans was there, perhaps on his way to the car. A moment of indecision passed before she hurried into the living room, thrust her feet into a pair of thong sandals that she kept by the door and went out. The thong broke on one shoe as she was going down the steps. Thoroughly disgusted, she kicked off both sandals and hurried across the dark yard. She had turned down the Kincaids’ drive toward the street when she heard what sounded like a man groaning. Stopping in her tracks, she held her breath listening.

“Oh, God,” he was saying, “what’s happening to us? I prayed and prayed before making this move, and I really thought it was the right thing to do, but now I don’t know. I can’t even talk to my own daughter anymore. Our next-door neighbor hates us. The shift I’m working doesn’t seem to leave time for much of anything else. I don’t know what to do now. You have to help me, Lord. I don’t seem able to do this on my own. How I wish Andie were here—or someone….”

Amy quietly turned and walked back to her own house, feeling small and ashamed and utterly selfish to be so disturbed by something as common as music played a little too loud, when people like Evans Kincaid had real problems, problems so deep that he prayed about them on his front porch in the middle of the night.